Monster
by Neleothesze
Summary: (Complete) You wanted an edge? You got it! Reincarnation is a reward for good little boys and girls but all power comes at a price. A series of one-shots featuring monster!SI-OCs.


**AN:** This story is written for fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously. It won't be a crossover beyond the main character(s) becoming various monsters. Posted to AO3 as well if you want to read it there.

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than the plot. All characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.**

* * *

 **Monster**

 **I: Tonberry - You Wanted an Edge ...And Got Karma Instead**

' _Aisa Rosario Thompson died Tuesday, 16th October, at the age of 28, from injuries suffered during a driving accident._

 _She leaves behind her husband of 7 years, Connor, their children, Connor Jr., Narcissa, Anthony and Ani, her mother Maria and grandparents, Mirasol and Juan, and her many online friends._

 _An avid computer gamer, Aisa was part of several online gaming communities and an administrator of the popular gaming site, _. Funeral arrangements are being handled by _. The funeral will be held on Friday, 19th October, at _._ '

She'd died.

It hadn't been the first time she'd argued with Connor while he was driving... but it'd certainly been the last. And now she was a kid again - at eleven, almost a teen - Ayakawa Mayuri, newly minted jounin of Tani instead of Aisa Thompson, wife, mother, guild-mistress and sometimes psycho-admin. She had been six when she'd remembered enough of her previous life to stop dismissing the memories as dreams and delusions.

By then, Mayuri had already been training as an assassin for Tanigakure no Sato, Kawa no Kuni's rather pathetic hidden village which boasted a grand three dozen shinobi (of various ranks) and a military leader who tended to nod off and snore during council meetings. She should know. As his granddaughter, she'd sometimes been allowed to stay and complete her written assignments while the five arthritic old men which made up the village council gathered together to gossip and grumble and bemoan the decline of their precious military. She might have spent the entirety of her second life mourning the loss of her previous one if not for a couple of things: vanity... and karma. Whatever eugenic principles the Ayakawa practiced, they had certainly managed to produce superior bred shinobi, if slightly unstable ones. She was by far the fastest of her classmates, with a large chakra pool (for her age and gender) and pleasing features to boot.

She frowned, tightening the knot on her third shuriken trap.

Now if only she could finally manage to leave the village before either she or her elder siblings finished killing each other, life would be perfect. Hahen and Koishi. If devils had ever spawned children, they couldn't have done better than those two: angelic faces, cruel dispositions and the obsessive desire to be the one to inherit Tani's hereditary council seat. So far, model Ayakawa heirs. As Kawa no Kuni's most famous shinobi clan, the Ayakawa had always encouraged an almost unhealthy competitiveness in their heirs and such things as a kunai trap in the shower or a few friendly wisteria seeds in the breakfast bowl were considered acceptable good morning presents (and simple, basic tests of the children's reflexes or poison detection skills). But her brothers... they were something else.

She might have loved them, she mused, little monsters that they were... perhaps she still did (in an twisted, fearful, resentful way) but they'd sabotaged her crib, poisoned her food and trapped her room one time too many. The third time she ended in the hospital suffering from a poisoned wound above her training level (thank Kami for her loyal governess) she started fearing for her life. Two years ago, when the poison was discovered to have affected her reproductive system, she dismissed their tearful apologies with a strained smile and finally started getting even, with all the spite of a thirty year old mother who'd just been told she'd never again have children of her own.

Seventeen year old Hahen was now blind in his right eye, fourteen year old Koishi's left hand had a near permanent tremor and Mayuri's skin bore deep acid scars from all the traps she'd failed to escape. Neither of them had ever quite managed to fatally injure the others, but it was only a matter of time. Ruthlessness was something every clan member seemed to have in spades... and the Ayakawa family were Tani's undisputed leaders for a reason. Well, the cunning, singular focus, viciousness, cruelty and a (possibly unhealthy) lack of compassion bore _**some** _ weight but Mayuri had to admit that it was mostly karma... or rather _**Karma**_ , Ayakawa's forbidden art, praised for having kept Kawa no Kuni's sovereignty intact even as the country sat between two greedy great powers, Konoha and Suna.

With the proper application of blackmail and emotional manipulation, Mayuri had managed to convince her grandfather to share this forbidden art now that she'd attained the rank of jounin.

As she finished her goodbye present, Mayuri took one last look at the mansion which had been her home for the past eleven years. Her lips quivered faintly and closed her eyes against the tears.

"Tch. Good riddance to bad rubbish." she mumbled, then gathered her chakra and shunshined out of the village.

* * *

"Minna no Urami... Everybody's Grudge. What a terrifying name, Ayakawa-sama!" Mayuri remembered saying to her grandfather, wide-eyed and simpering. "But what does it do?"

"It is our most deadly of arts, child. ' _Angels and babes are but safe from our grudge!/ The souls of the dead had cried./ Made tenfold their burden, so let sinners be crushed/ And perish under the weight of their crimes._ ' " her grandfather had quoted "That is Karma, Mayuri-chan. Only to be used in the direst of circumstances, for the user must pay a terrible pri-"

"Yes, yes, honorable grandfather, of course" she'd rudely interrupted, the pretense of an attentive obedient heir failing in the face of her impatience "but what does it actually **do**?"

The elder's gaze had gone unfocused, sad and lost, she recalled.

"It's said that the jutsu calls upon the primal balance of life to judge the target, and curses them to bear ten-times the pain of all the people they've killed." the elder had said and Mayuri had shivered in fear and excitement.

"So to a shinobi..."

"A young genin might survive it... a chuunin? A jounin? Never. But there is a reason we do not use this lightly, Mayuri-chan. Men weren't meant to hold judgement over other men. To use Karma is to accept living a life as something other than human... Something more and something less."

"I don't understand-"

"Kai" the clan head had wheezed. When the illusion dispelled, Mayuri had tried not to flinch. Her grandfather's skin had changed to an unnatural grey hue, thick like a rhino's hide. His hunched, bald form had shrunken and his rheumy brown eyes held an inhuman glow. Though it was cowardly, she'd quickly looked away from the strange, emotionless gaze.

"Eight times have I used Karma..." he'd said "and with every use I've found it harder and harder to refrain from using it. This genjutsu... it is the strongest I could cast and I've been told that many doujutsu users and genjutsu masters can see through it with ease. Soon, even this will fail and it will be up to you children to lead Tani in my stead. The world can't know the monsters justice makes of us."

"I understand, grandfather." she'd agreed with a deep bow.

Her hair had fallen forward, hiding the growing smile. ' _Oh, grandfather, I understand perfectly_ ' she'd thought. ' _But becoming a monster doesn't really worry me. Let my brothers finish killing themselves for Tani's seat of power.'_

...A missing nin was closer to a dungeon boss than a hero anyway.

* * *

The first hostiles she met were simple bandits she took down with just a poisoned kunai and a clever application of the Kawarimi no Jutsu.

In true RPGer fashion, she cleaned the bodies of all their possessions and walked into the nearest village with a bulging burlap sack full of iron weapons, blood-splattered clothes, mismatched leather armor and a collection of odds and ends.

The village's only shopkeeper had stood gawping as Mayuri methodically unloaded a mountain of junk featuring everything from jeweled ribbons, bamboo fishing poles, lucky rabbit feet and miniature copper hats to loaded dice, feather and bone amulets and even a surprisingly well-kept scripture of Jashin.

' _At low levels, any loot is good loot!_ ' had always been her motto and the random bits and pieces had, in the end, earned her almost as much ryo as the actual bounty the villagers had placed on the bandits' heads.

* * *

She stumbled upon the first 'canon character' within three weeks of leaving the village.

She's just been emptying the pockets of an unfortunate Iwa nin when Zetsu emerged from the gnarly trunk of a nearby tree.

' _Could that really be... Zetsu! Impossible..._ _Ahh, world boss, here?!_ ' she thought with mounting panic ' _No way, no way! What on Earth do I do now?!_ '

The dual-coloured man had apparently been hunting the same target as her and didn't take kindly to having his prey stolen by another. She was shaking and sweating, still crouched by the Iwa nin's corpse as Zetsu's white half kindly informed her that they'd be killing her now, sorry, goodbye and thank you for the meal.

"I'd tell y-you to send your m-mother my regards but I sh-should first make s-sure this w-works as intended, shouldn't I?" she quipped back, wide-eyed, trembling and stuttering, then flash-stepped into melee range " _ **Kinjutsu: Karma, Minna no Urami!**_ "

Grey chakra gathered around her hands and Mayuri clasped her fingers around Zetsu's neck. Normally, going within range of Zetsu's spores would have been a suicidal stunt. Now, just as the plant man activated his own Houshi Jutsu, Mayuri could feel Karma taking hold, leeching her life energy as a price. Her hair whitened and she clenched her jaw against the pain even as Zetsu started screaming. He clawed at the hands holding him captive, bruising and rending the skin.

"We-well... what do you kn-know." Mayuri grit out as he flailed in the jutsu's hold. "O-op po-powers are op."

Zetsu's black flesh had started peeling apart when Mayuri found that she couldn't bear the pain anymore and started howling just as loudly as Kaguya's dying construct.

They fell to the ground in a ghastly parody of an embrace, arms flailing around one another as Zetsu was being ripped apart by the chakra's punishment and his spores spread, grew and then died around Mayuri's body... the teenaged body which was quickly morphing into that of a childlike, grey-skinned humanoid.

Slowly, the screams were silenced.

At the forest's edge, two monsters lay tangled together, a corpse and an odd, tiny little thing whose low, keening rumbles sounded almost like words.

* * *

Things you probably know:  
 **OP** \- overpowered. Something which is considered by gamers too powerful.  
 **World boss** \- a top level monster which usually takes a large team of top level player characters to take down.

The **Master Tonberry's Minna no Urami** is a ranged ability which comes into effect if the monster is hit twice in a row by the player. It cannot be blocked or avoided. Obviously this would have been just too much for the Naruto universe, hence the reason it's a touch ability here (still very powerful but not quite so much). :)


End file.
